Various medical conditions call for partial or complete occlusion of blood vessels or vascular formations. Aneurysms can be treated by filling a defect with embolic coils, polymers, or other materials to promote thrombus formation and relieve vessel wall pressure. Similarly, cardiac septal defects may be treated with occlusion devices configured to expand to fill the defect and block unwanted blood flow. Also, cancer can be treated using occlusion devices to restrict blood supply to tumors.
Embolic coils have proven popular for vessel occlusion owing to the ability to place such coils in aneurysms and other vascular formations using percutaneous techniques. Improved deployment technology has permitted enhanced positioning of embolic coils using readily available imaging systems, such as fluoroscopy. In addition, the occlusive effectiveness of embolic coils has been furthered by incorporating thrombosis-promoting fibers in the coil structure, and by adopting space-filling coil conformations.
While embolic coils have undergone significant development, there remains room for further improvements. Currently, the use of embolic coils in large diameter blood vessels is limited due to the risk of coil migration caused by higher blood flow. Unlike coils delivered into a recessed anatomical feature (e.g., an aneurysm), embolic coils placed in high-flow blood vessels risk being swept downstream of a target location, and potentially lodging at other locations. Such unwanted coil movement can lead to incomplete vessel occlusion at the target location and necessitate additional procedures to remove a migrated coil.
The coil anchor system of the present disclosure solves one or more of the problems set forth above.